Caught in the Storm
by Life.exe
Summary: The Last Dalek, Caan, is forced to get help, but ends up in deeper trouble. An AU ending for 'Evolution of the Daleks'. Major spoilers for the end of this episode. The rating is T since there may be gory scenes later.
1. Chapter 1

**AN**:

This fic is set in an AU, so I have sorta twisted a few things just to make it a tad more interesting...maybe even crack!fic-ish. But really, I wrote this fic a while ago and it's been rotting in my PC's memory for a few months now. The events that happen later may seem a bit odd. But there is/was a reason behind them that I thought seemed good at the time.

**Chapter One**

He stood in the entrance to the massive genetic laboratory, his greatest enemy, Ka Faraq Gatri, with his hands tucked into the pockets of his pinstriped suit and all the while staring steadily at him. "Now what?" he asked calmly, his voice echoing around the desolate and cold laboratory.

Caan's response was automatic, angry and thoughtless. "You will be exterminated!"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, just think about it Dalek! What was you name?" the Doctor's voice was starting to rise and so was his authority.

Caan could have killed him, but he didn't. Hatred swelled up inside him, but there was curiosity there too.

"Dalek Caan." He grated his reply as proudly as he could, trying to regain any control over the situation that he might have lost through anger.

The Time Lord took his time to walk forwards. Every step he took was deliberately placed to gain Caan's full attention, "Dalek Caan, your entire species has been wiped out, and now the Cult of Skaro has been eradicated." The Doctor paused, his words falling thick in the stale air. "Leaving only you." He stared deep into Caan's eyepiece as if trying to observe the mutant within.

Caan was unsure whether the Doctor was trying to intimidate him, or trying to induce shame. Either way it made no difference to him. His domed head clicked lightly as it positioned his eye to better read the Doctor's face. It was in his eyes that he saw sadness, maybe even understanding, but to Caan all it represented was weakness. Caan was determined not to over analyse; he would encounter dangers if he thought too hard. Dangers that would lead him down the same path as Dalek Sec, impure and dead.

"Right now you're facing the only man in the universe who might show you some compassion." The Doctor took a few more slow deliberate steps forward and stopped just feet in front of the Dalek.

Caan's head started to twitch and click faster, trying to determine the severity of the situation. He had no idea where the Doctor's speech was leading to but also he was extremely sure he was about to say something dire. The Doctor had many weaknesses, but he did have strength and would sometimes show no mercy to his enemies; many Dalek armies had fallen by the Doctor's cunning intellect. Caan did not want the same thing to happen to him, especially since he was the last Dalek left. If he was killed then the Time Lords would have won the war, and that was unthinkable.

The Doctor continued to speak slowly, taking slow deep breaths. "I've just seen one genocide." The Doctor's eyes were wide and looked close to tears. "I won't cause another."  
He paused again. "Caan," he addressed him with a look of extreme solemnity.

Caan began to glance around. He could feel his own nerves build as the Doctor reached the climax. The instinct to flee was increasing rapidly with every passing millisecond.

"Let me help you," he said. "What do you say?"

Caan once more responded angrily and without real thought. "Emergency temporal shift!"

Thought wasn't required. There was no way, and under any circumstance, that he would accept any help from his greatest enemy. Daleks did not make allies with the adversary. They were great and powerful, and could do anything they wished without assistance from lesser races.

The temporal shift procedure was engaged as soon as Caan uttered his intent and his casing began to shake violently in preparation for the dematerialisation. The cables connecting him and the makeshift Dalek military computer rattled free and fell to the floor.

He noticed with slight horror, or as much horror as a Dalek could feel, that his fuel cells were dangerously low on power. Electricity and energy were diminishing faster with every sub-procedure that was executed. He was just nanoseconds from escaping from the storm, the darkness. Ka Faraq Gatri.

Everything stopped.

Caan's eyestalk darted down towards the ground as he analysed what had happened. The floor was the same floor he had seen only seconds ago, and time had not changed direction or speed.

He was still on Earth. Still in the Empire State Building with the Doctor. And still in danger.

He glared upwards at the Doctor whose face was not only bemused but also slowly contorting into a sneer of triumph. There was only one thing left he could do because suicide wasn't an option, he would never let the Time Lords win.

Caan redirected all the power he had left into priming his gun. "Exterminate!" He screamed frantically and aimed his gun towards his target's chest.

Nothing came. Caan waved his gun arm to try and stimulate a discharge but it too had lost power. Despite knowing there was nothing he could do he continued to shriek in frenzy. "Exterminate! Exterminate! Exterminate!"

He automatically tried to seek out his comrades, tried to summon them for help, tried to remember why they weren't coming…

The Doctor took a confident step forwards and shouted in a deep voice, "Caan!"

The Dalek froze.

"Caan." He continued in a profound whisper, "they're dead." He edged forwards slightly. "You killed them. Remember? You killed your own equivalent of a family!"

"Keep back!" Caan grated in confusion and insane fear, reversing at full speed and slamming into something that had been pushed to the side earlier. He swivelled his eyestalk round to see what he was cornered against and found the blank stare of his ex-leader's empty casing gazing down accusingly upon him. 

The true body of Dalek Sec lay stiff on the stage of a theatre somewhere inside the building. Caan's travel machine started to quiver for no obvious reason; this quiver was too deep for him to understand.

"What's wrong, Caan?" the Doctor asked with his head held high. "You look like you've seen a ghost," the Doctor taunted and grinned at his reaction. The Doctor moved forward, trying to get even closer.

Caan screamed at him, "keep back!" He raised his sucker arm in a threatening manner and held it inches away from the Doctor's face, ready to suffocate him if he got too close.

The Doctor took a slow intake of breath and then merely brushed his arm gently out of the way. "It's okay." He said softly, continuing to grip Caan's arm, "it's natural to be frightened of change." He paused. "-And believe me, it is going to happen."

Caan gazed out at the Doctor. He didn't try to remove his hand from his arm. "Daleks do not fear!" Caan barked, "I am a pure Dalek, and Daleks are perfect. I — will — not — change!"

"If you want to survive, Caan, then you must change." The Doctor's head nodded slightly as he said 'must'. "Change is nothing! People do it all the time." He continued.

"You change because you are weak." Caan growled and finally rejected the Doctor's touch with a brisk flick of his arm.

For a small moment a look of defiance spread across the Doctor's face. He looked ready to retort but there was a disturbance outside the laboratory. Both Caan and the Doctor turned to observe as three figures stumbled into the massive room. The Doctor looked like he had great concern for the middle figure, one of the less deformed pig slaves, whilst Caan looked on in complete disgust.

"Doctor!" one of the females shouted and aimed a glare at Caan. Her and the other human carefully lowered the pig slave onto the ground. She placed her hand on the creature's neck and said, "it's his heart, it's racing. I've never seen anything like it before." She sounded like she knew what she was talking about. The Doctor walked towards them, turning his back on Caan and kneeling down beside the weak crippled figure.

"What is it, Doctor?" the blonde female asked, her voice full of disgusting emotions. Caan gazed on impassively as they fussed over the pointless creature. "What's the matter with him? He say's he can't breathe." Her voice was an irritating whine.

"None of the slaves survive for long, most of them only live for a few weeks. I was lucky. I only held on because I had you," the pig slave managed to reply with difficulty.

Caan didn't understand, nor did he want to know what the slave had meant by 'I only held on because I had you'. These were emotions that Daleks scorned the most because they were the most useless instinct to occur in a sapient being, and also because it was far beyond their genetic capacity to comprehend. All he needed to know was that those emotions were pointless and made you weak.  
The commotion with the pig slave continued as the pathetic human pleaded with the Time Lord to save the foul creature. The prospect of helping the slave was nauseating. 

He backed away slightly as the Doctor jumped up in realisation and started to prance foolishly around the laboratory as if he wasn't even there. Caan might have taken offence at it, but he didn't. He watched in wretched curiosity as the Timelord ranted to his audience how he was going to save Laszlo, the pig slave's, life.

"What do I need?!" He yelled as he threw off his long coat, glanced quickly at Caan and then stared around the room. "Oh, I don't know, how about a great big genetic laboratory?!" He looked up into the depths of the room, "oh look! I've got one!"

Caan eyed the Doctor as he pulled trays towards himself, mixed solutions and ignited Bunsen burners with his sonic device. His methods were crude and inaccurate yet he somehow managed without difficulty.

"There have been too many deaths today!" he yelled, "I'm not having anymore." He shot another warning look at Caan as if addressing him in person. Caan replied with an impassive stare. The Doctor then tended to the slave while he waited for the medicine to brew.

The Dalek saw no point in trying to escape; his energy reserves were critically low and the chances of being noticed and captured were high. He would just have to wait and see what his fate was before acting against them.

Minutes later and the blonde female had walked up to him, arms folded, "why'd you do it?" She asked. Caan ignored her and continued to skulk slowly around the perimeter of the group. She had the audacity to block him. She looked into his eye, "tell me!" She demanded, "why'd you do this to Laszlo? Why'd you turn him into a monster?" 

He allowed her a small glance but didn't respond any further.

"Answer me!" she yelled, "I want to know." She continued like this for quite some time, and all the while Caan's annoyance was building. She was like this irritating sensation he couldn't rid of. An itch. And there was only one way he knew how to get rid of itches.  
He lunged at her with his sucker-arm extended towards her face, growling slightly. Her scream did nothing to calm him; it was shrill and dramatic, and highly infuriating.

Caan could hear the Doctor shouting angrily at him, "Caan! Leave her alone!" But he was not willing to obey and continued to try and suffocate the human. The thought of ridding the universe of such a foul creature almost gave him a sense of mental relief. It was a way to balance himself.

The Doctor rammed into his arm, which loosened his grip. He was forced up against the wall with the Doctor's snarling face glaring at him through his eyepiece. Caan knew that if he had more energy he would have easily overpowered the Doctor, but he was weak and he hated it.

"Martha!" The Doctor's head turned to address his companion, who was sitting beside the pig slave and watching over him.

"Yes, Doctor?" She stood up and obediently listened to him.

Caan was still trying to break free from the Doctor's grasp mainly because he saw weakness plastered over his face and that meant he had a chance of winning the struggle.

"That clear tube thing on the table next to the brown thingamabob? Sorta looks like a syringe?" The Doctor nodded towards the item he was wanting. Martha took it and held it up. "Yeah, take it and put some of that lovely red goo in it. Once you've done that bring it here and when I use my sonic screwdriver I want you to ram that needle into the Dalek's neck and inject it."

Caan's iris widened in shock. He knew what the Doctor was going to do and he didn't like the idea of being injected, so he panicked and flailed even harder. 

It didn't take long before the painful sound of the sonic screwdriver was screaming at him, the noise hurt more then the jab in his side. The contents of the injection were quick to enter his circulatory system and affect him both mentally and physically. He knocked into the nearby wall, dazed as if a rather large vehicle had collided with him.

"What's it done to it?" Martha asked from a distance.

The Doctor put his screwdriver back in its pocket. "Well Caan," he mused, "this is something you haven't felt either in a long time, or never before."

Caan looked at him. "What have you done to me?!" he demanded, fearing it was one of the genetic solutions. He did not want to be impure. Couldn't bear the thought.  
It slowly got harder for him to concentrate as his mind began to wander.

"Oh, you could say I've just tucked you into bed. Sweet dreams!" The Doctor waved before turning away from him and going back to the pig slave. Caan was left confused, delirious and exceptionally weary.

A peculiar darkness engulfed him as he passed out only seconds later.


	2. Chapter 2

**AN: **Chapter 2...and it's starting to get slightly crack!fic-ish.

**Chapter Two**

**10 hours later, back on the TARDIS:**

The Doctor was lying on his back fiddling with wires under the TARDIS console. He could hardly believe what had happened over the past day. Daleks! And in _Manhattan_? Now there was one left chained up and unconscious in a room deep within the TARDIS. He must be going soft to keep a Dalek in her, he thought.

Getting him in the TARDIS had been bad enough; nobody had been willing to stay with Caan's inert form as he went to fetch the time ship. And then there was the hassle with trying to get him over the threshold; he wouldn't be surprised if the Dalek woke up with a massive headache.

He yelped as he received a small static shock, shook his hand in the air and then reached out for his screwdriver only to have it placed in his hand. He sat up, narrowly missing bashing his head on the edge of the console, and looked up at Martha.

"Hello!" he said cheerily and grinned. He knew he was about to take her back home but deep down he knew she wasn't leaving. Not yet.

"Hi," she said in a dismal voice.

The Doctor stared after her wondering what she looked so unhappy about, surely someone as intelligent as her knew he wouldn't be able to desert her like he said he would. He wondered why he was doing it in the first place. It was always hard loosing his companions. He didn't want to get used to Martha only to have her leave again.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

She looked at him and paused before finally saying, "I just don't get how you can keep that monster on your ship. It killed your people. It killed its own people. And it killed a whole race! It's insane! I mean, what exactly are you going to do with it?"

He sighed, "before you came back into the laboratory I asked it if it would accept my help. As you can guess it declined by trying to escape, and then when that didn't work it tried to shoot me."

"Why didn't it?" she asked and sat down on the floor beside him.

"For the same reason it didn't escape; it ran out of power."

"That still doesn't explain what you're going to do with it."

"It's my responsibility to make sure it doesn't escape and kill people." He said simply. But it wasn't as simple as that. He didn't know why, but he thought Caan's presence would help him recover from his loss of Gallifrey. They _were_ the same; both had committed genocide and now both of them were an endangered species. He wanted to turn Caan around, to make him see sense, to make the creature _feel_ something for once, and thought that maybe he had a chance. Or maybe he was just becoming desperate now. He continued working under the TARDIS, muttering back up to Martha, "check on him, will you?"

He saw her nod slightly out of the corner of his eye. She left the room at no great speed, clearly unwilling to have to see the Dalek again.

As she left the room something round and hard fell on his head. "Agh!" he yelped and picked up the object. He stared at the small round object and wondered from where it might have fallen. Looking up, he saw nothing except the slow gentle movement of the TARDIS's central column rise and felt a small mental jab at the back of his mind. Why had the Old Girl thrown a webcam at him? _How_ had she thrown a webcam at him?

"What?" he asked out loud, "eh?" He knew the TARDIS was capable of a lot of things, but throwing a webcam at him was a new one to him. He placed the small camera on the floor; as soon as he lifted his hand from it he got a very strange idea. He picked it up again and put it in his pocket, hoping that Caan was still out cold from the rather large dose of anaesthetic that he had received.

He left the console room and wandered slowly down the mass of corridors towards the TARDIS prison cells. Unlike most prison cells these ones morphed to fit the basic needs of the creature being held. Caan's cell was just a small concrete room with thick chains attaching him to the wall. There was dim lighting, added no doubt as an attempt to calm its violent occupant.

He bumped into Martha as she was leaving the cell.

"How come you're down here?" she asked curiously.

"Is he still conked out?" he asked, ignoring her question.

"Totally. The eye is just this tiny little pinprick and if you listen real close you can hear its breath. So, what are you doing?"

"A thought just hit me on the head. Literally." he said with a slight smile.

"What was it?"

"This." he pulled out the small webcam.

"A webcam? You've already got surveillance in there. There's a little eye thing in the corner." Martha pointed inside.

"Well, yeah. Surveillance in the room, but I was just thinking how little we actually know about the Dalek mutants themselves. I know a fair bit, but not as much as I'd like to know." he said, turning the camera around in his hands.

Martha gave him an odd look, "what do you mean? You aren't going to…"  
The look on his face told her he was 'going to'.  
"Nooo," she said in disbelief, "are you crazy? You're crazy!" and she laughed at him.

"Well? Are you coming?" he asked mischievously and strode through the prison door. Martha followed tentatively behind him.

The Doctor stopped in front of the Dalek and looked into its eye. A faint blue light told him it was unconscious but still alive, but just to be sure he waved his hand in front of it to see if it would dilate. The Daleks were known to feign things in order to get what they want, and no doubt Caan wanted to escape and kill him.

Once he was sure Caan was unconscious he took out his screwdriver and set it to open electrical catches quietly.

"Hang on a moment." Martha whispered, "won't he notice if there's something new inside his casing?"

The Doctor shook his head, "no, he shouldn't. He'd only ever notice if he somehow got disconnected from his life support or if for whatever the reason he decided to open his casing. Even then I don't think he would care," he said whilst he held the screwdriver close to the catch in Caan's left shoulder. It clicked open and the thick armour slowly moved forwards.

"Ugh… what is that?" Martha stepped back and pinched her nose.

The Doctor grinned, "_that_, is the smell of a Dalek. He's a pretty stinky one actually."

"I'm glad they spend most of their time shut away. That's rank! If he stinks this place up I'll be running him a bath very shortly."

The Doctor shrugged, "it could be worse. You could be on one of those planets where the inhabitants communicate through flatulence."

He looked at Caan's gun arm and decided to remove it while he had the chance. It came out surprisingly easily, with just a few gentle tugs. He examined inside the machine and saw a sight so gruesome and funny he had to bite his fist to stop laughing.

Caan was very dead to the world; his tentacles were sprawled over all the controls, his massive deformed head was resting on the casing's touch screen monitor with what appeared to be a long grey tongue hanging indecently from what could only be described as a mouth, and thanks to his tongue the monitor was covered in saliva and the display was racing down menus upon menus of computer settings. The Doctor wondered how long he had been like that.

He carefully moved the Dalek's head so that he could get to the computer and re-program it without him waking up. He watched in amusement as Caan flopped backwards and landed in a position just as bad as the first. His head was craned backwards, mouth open and snoring in the well-known and embarrassing 'flycatcher' position. The Doctor giggled again.

"What's funny?" Martha asked him from behind and tried to peer over his shoulder.

"Take a look," he invited her.

She leaned forwards to gaze inside, "oh my God! That's ridiculous, he must have gotten a serious amount of anaesthetic."

"Out like a light. I would say he's sleeping like a baby… but, babies tend to be a bit cuter then that."

The Doctor continued with the re-programming. He spent a few minutes staring at the webcam deciding where he should place it. Finally settling on a spot just slightly above the mutant and to the side, he reached inside the machine. It took a few attempts to find something to attach it to and ended up tying it to some of the power cables. He stood back and aimed the sonic screwdriver at Caan's travel unit. The mechanical shoulders shut together and sealed the mutant inside.

"Better leave him alone to get out of that coma," the Doctor said, picked up the Dalek's gun arm and led Martha out of the room, "how long do you reckon it would take for him to wake up?" he asked her.

"I don't know," she said. "He's an alien, how am I supposed to know?"

"It's all the same really," he replied.

"Hardly. How can your two hearts be considered the same as my one?" she muttered under her breath, the Doctor still heard her and shrugged.


	3. Chapter 3

**AN:** It's a shorter chapter then normal, maybe slightly duller too... just think of it a slight interlude. :P And also, I shall add the last chapter straight away!

**Chapter Three **

**3 hours later:**

Martha had gone to bed. According to where and when he was planning to drop her off she should only have been gone for 12 hours so she was trying to catch up on sleep.

The Doctor was sitting with his feet up on the console, looking sadly at the display and contemplating his actions. He might not show it, but he did like Martha. She was intelligent and resourceful.

After a few hours of looking at the monitor he was beginning to get bored of the sight of the purple galaxy they were orbiting around, pretty it may be, but after 900 years of travel it sometimes got a tiny bit repetitive. His hand twisted a set of knobs on the console and the display changed to that of Caan's cell.

There was nothing interesting to see. Caan's eyestalk was still pointing towards the ground unresponsively. The Doctor changed the view again to the inside of his casing, the title in the corner of the monitor reading "Mutantcam". He wasn't sure whether he should have felt guilty or not for invading Caan's privacy, but if the Daleks really didn't feel emotions then Caan wouldn't care too much if he found out. _If_ he found out.

The Doctor watched the creature for a while, occasionally recalibrating the ship's controls as he did so. Over the course of an hour Caan did not move, he did not twitch or stir in any way. The only sign of life was his shallow breathing, which was hard to spot and for a few moments the Doctor thought the Dalek had died on him. He was about to get up and start repairs on the TARDIS again, sighing loudly before he did so, when he caught a small amount of movement out of the corner of his eye.

He looked back at the display, back at Caan, and saw that he was finally beginning to stir; his tentacles were starting to twitch very slightly.

Out of curiosity the Doctor split the screen so he could get an outward and an inward view of Caan. His casing's remaining arm was also starting to twitch and the light in his eye was glowing slightly brighter. He looked around the cell slowly, his head turning 360 degrees and then gazing lazily upwards.

The Doctor tapped his fingers on the controls and ran his other fingers through his hair thoughtfully. What was he going to do with Caan now that he was awake? Should he go down and talk to him while he was still groggy after being in a coma? It was after all, only a matter of time before he woke up completely and returned to his normal aggressive, temperamental and domineering self.

Caan answered the question for him, yet at the same time caused new ones to form in his mind. The Dalek had just stretched each of his limbs in turn and then continued the waking procedure with a rather large yawn.  
He raised his eyebrows at it and found that, much to his annoyance, the sight of it had set him off too.

"Oh thanks a lot," he muttered at the screen. "Bleeding yawns, why do they have to be so contagious?" He watched with amusement and wonder as the mutant returned to the first position that he had found him in, his head drooped onto the touch screen monitor in total exhaustion.

The part the Doctor found most intriguing was that Caan had chosen to sleep. In all his time of knowing the creatures he had never caught or heard of one sleeping before. It had always been believed that they only rested small sections of their brain at a time, so in some ways they were almost always 'sleeping on the job'.

It meant only two things to him; either common belief was wrong and they _did_ actually sleep, or Caan was ill and using it as a means of recovery.

What did it matter anymore? The Doctor thought, the last Dalek in the universe was trapped inside his TARDIS, probably the best place to keep it, dead or living.

With a last quick glance at the screen, he pulled out his screwdriver and began repairs on his ship once more.

* * *

_Thanks to everyone who has reviewed so far. :) _


	4. Chapter 4

**AN: **has been edited since it was first posted. Not by much though.

**42 hours later:**

"Yoo-hoo! Caan! Wakey wakey!"

A voice prickled at Caan's audio sensors, waking him slightly.

That was the second time this had happened in what he perceived as a short time, yet his travel unit told him that 55 Earth hours had passed since he had been sedated by that obnoxious human female inside the Empire State Building in New York.

He hadn't even activated the optics in his eyestalk yet and he could already sense small sickening spots floating aggressively and painfully in the air.

Ka Faraq Gatri's teasing calls did nothing but worsen his condition, "who's a sleepy Dalek? Come on, Caan, wake up."

The Timelord then had the nerve to slap his eyestalk, causing the shutters to open and allowing light to fall inside and activate his artificial optic nerve. It hurt him and he involuntarily groaned, instantly wishing he hadn't because it showed weakness. And the one thing he was determined not to be was weak.

"There you go." The Doctor said, grabbing hold of his eyestalk and twisting it around to face him and his disgusting grin. "Admittedly a little bit duller then I would have liked you to be but…you can't always have everything." The Doctor paused and looked deeply at him. "How's it all going in there then?" He grinned horribly again.

Caan was even more awake now; the beginnings of a painful headache were starting to develop. What made it worse was that he had not been able to replenish his nutrient and water supplies; he was what many races called hungry and dehydrated. He blamed Ka Faraq Gatri's ship for that. He knew the Doctor regarded it as a being, and this _being_ had the power to give him dry, lifeless air to breathe.

"Still not talking?" The Doctor asked him, "well Caan, I'm not going to give up on you just because you won't talk. You're stuck with me now. Stuck forever. Stuck forever with me and my endless ramblings. Didn't I tell you my fine friend Martha is going to be staying with us?"

He panicked, not because of the Doctor's words, but because his condition became seriously worse without any warning. Caan wasn't sure what was happening as he coughed and spluttered, however the Doctor practically leapt backwards in surprise.

"Ugh! You got it on my suit!" the Doctor cried, looking down to inspect his clothes.

Caan followed his gaze, wondering what he had done to aggravate his enemy so much, and found a fine splatter of vomit. Caan felt both a sense of triumph and annoyance. He had irritated the Doctor, but at the same time his action had been like admitting illness and was therefore a form of weakness. He did not want to look vulnerable in front of his greatest enemy.

And his greatest enemy was not ashamed to examine his splatter of mess by dragging his finger in it and tasting it. "Ugh!" He cried again. "That's sick!"

Caan stared horrified at him, even by Dalek standards this behaviour was just plain _wrong_.

"And there I was thinking you were faking it. Martha was right, you are unwell," the Doctor said reflectively and turned around to shout on his companion, "Martha! I've got a patient for you!"

Caan glared at the Doctor. To be called a patient for a human was bringing him close to feeling humiliation. The human's mind would be too inferior to work on the likes of _him_, he tried to raise his gun arm but couldn't find the hardware.

He looked around on the ground for the device but found nothing. He growled, anger and hatred rising, headache also advancing to the next level. His mood wasn't improved by the fact it was harder for him to breathe through his grille now that it was congested with sick.

If he had been with other Daleks they would have been quick to remove the worst of it, but nothing was as efficient as a Dalek, and now he was the last left.

When Martha came his fury rose greater still. True, the human was obedient, but that was the only quality about her he would ever consider praising. The rest of her was pure filth.

Martha regarded him with a look of distaste. "Eww, what is that on his neck?" she asked, looking at the Doctor and diving his clothes a similar yet less intense look. "What is that on your suit?"

"He threw up on me," the Doctor said, clearly dismayed. "Now I'm going to have to wash my clothes."

Martha laughed quietly at the Doctor's misfortune before suddenly turning very serious. "Look, Doctor," she said pointedly and folded her arms. "I'm not treating a Dalek. How is that supposed to help any of us?"

Caan glared at her. She should have been honoured to tend to him; he was superior in all aspects. How could the pathetic creature look down in disgust on him? That was his place to condescend anything that wasn't Dalek.

"I don't know," he said in response to her question. That proved it, Caan thought, not only was the Doctor weak he was also unintelligent. "Maybe you could learn a thing or two from each other," he continued and glanced between the two of them.

"Daleks do not need to learn from humans! They are weak and brainless!" Caan managed to bark.

The Doctor laughed scornfully at him. "Back up a moment, Caan. Aren't you, oh wait, sorry, _weren't_ you in the Cult of Skaro? I thought that group was supposed to think like the enemy does. I don't think that fits in with what you just said, '_Daleks do not need to learn from humans_'."

"It is irrelevant!" he screamed, too hastily to realise what he was saying. He was starting to get desperate to regain his authority, which seemed to be diminishing as his indignity grew.

"Too right 'it _is_ irrelevant', you killed the whole lot of them. You committed genocide on the last of your species, the legendary Cult of Skaro…reduced to dust by one of its own members. How does it feel, Caan? How does it _feel_ to know you brought about your own species extinction?" the Doctor said darkly.

Caan paused. Paused to stop himself from falling into the trap Ka Faraq Gatri was trying to set for him. He would _not_ think about it. They are dead and he is the last of his species; those are the only facts he needed to know.

"How does it feel?" he asked again.

Caan shrieked a frenzied, "SILENCE!" He could feel his condition worsening again and tried to fight off the nausea, especially since his fluid levels were low. "Th – th – is – is – get – t – ing – us – us – no – where!" he tried to bark and hated the sound of his weakening voice, more so since the Doctor eyed him with a look of curiosity.

The Doctor dared step nearer again. "Calm down, Caan," he sounded like he was trying to be reassuring.

Caan raised his remaining arm threateningly, but only got halfway before it dropped of its own accord; his mind was also starting to lose its grasp.

"Save the rest of your energy for recovering," the Doctor continued with his disgusting nose practically against his lens.

"You're weak." Caan stated in a feeble croak and then he started to retch again. Both Martha and the Doctor were watching him with raised eyebrows as if he had said something doubtful. The Doctor backed away slightly, probably in fear of getting struck by more of Caan's projectile vomiting, but he was too slow and got his hair covered in rancid slime.

"Urgh!" he exclaimed as he ran his fingers through his now sticky hair. "Martha, I'm going to wash my hair and clean my clothes. I've never known Daleks to be so messy." And he walked off without a backwards glance.

Caan felt slightly worse, but at the same time his bout of vomiting had been a relief. It seemed that the ridiculous dose of sedative had poisoned him and he glared bitterly at the foul human creature, it had been her fault and she would pay for her imprudence. Somehow, despite him being ill and chained up without a gun. He was intelligent; he would think of something.

Martha seemed to notice his evil stare and sighed heavily as the Doctor disappeared.

At least he knew she didn't get any satisfaction out of being with him.

-oOo-

Martha didn't know very much about the Daleks biology and so was at a loss of what to do with Caan. Luckily for her he had become so delirious he answered some of her questions, occasionally blurting out something random or saying something that sounded completely made up.

"What do you need done first?" she asked him bitterly for the fourth time.

He was just sitting there with his eyestalk floating dizzily around the room. "So dehydrated…" he muttered feebly.

Martha raised her eyebrow. "No, I asked you what you need done first. I'll give you water when everything else is sorted."

"But…" he mumbled. She was surprised by his answer; he sounded like his mental capacity had been reduced to that of a child's.

"No 'buts'," she said forcefully, "other things come first."

The Dalek stared at her; his iris kept on trying to dilate. "Everything needs water," he said stubbornly.

"Yeah I know, but there's no point in giving you any if you've got something more serious wrong with you. What do you need apart from water?" She was determined not to give in to him, Caan needed taught that people would sometimes fight against his wishes and could sometimes win against him.

Caan paused for a long while; she was beginning to wonder if he had fallen asleep again but knew he hadn't because the light in his lens was still lit, weak but burning nevertheless.

"I – breathing is difficult while my neck is congested," he finally said.

"I'll go and get something to clean you up with then," she said in a low growl and wandered slowly out of Caan's desolate little prison. She was not in a hurry and spent the excess time while finding materials to ponder over why the Doctor wanted to keep the evil beast alive. His main reason, she thought, was because he didn't want to be responsible for another genocide. Or maybe he was actually crazy enough to think he could actually turn the creature around.

The Daleks would stop being evil when the universe stopped turning and Hell froze over, she thought bitterly as she picked up a bucket and filled it with warm soapy water. Picking up an old towel and exiting the small store room, hoping that Caan wasn't going to try and drink the water and also wondering how he drank, she wandered back to the tiny prison cell.

Caan instantly spotted the bucket and gazed at it obsessively. Martha had to tap his head to get his attention. "Don't try to drink it unless you want an even worse stomach ache then what you've already got; it has soap in it," she said to him.

He muttered sour protests at her in response.

She absolutely hated the idea of having to clean Caan, and no doubt he hated the idea of it too. He didn't talk or move as she rubbed his grille clean and that almost made it worse because she wasn't sure if he might actually like the benefit of it despite hating the prospect of her presence.

Several minutes into the cleaning session and she noticed that Caan was making a rather strange noise. She was rinsing the old ragged towel out into the bucket when she heard it. He was muttering restlessly and his eyestalk was twitching slightly. She almost knocked the bucket over in complete shock because he sounded like he was singing.

Delirium was so strong in him that she managed to get close enough to hear him better. He didn't try to knock her over with his remaining arm, or suffocate her.

He sounded oddly sad, or scared; his voice was low and wasn't quite as raspy as it usually was. Whatever he was singing though she couldn't hear because the sound was closer to a mutter.

Martha shook her head in astonishment; his behaviour was beginning to frighten her. She decided enough was enough and picked up the bucket. Maybe she should have given him some water first after all, she thought and walked speedily out of the room. Not daring to look back at the Dalek and his insane singing. At one point she even wondered about throwing the bucket of water over his head to see if it would shock him into some sense, but decided against it because it would be unhygienic and she really didn't want to wash him again.

-oOo-

Caan didn't remember much at all; he hadn't really been in a state to think properly. He just sat there staring at the human female as she placed another bucket of water next to him, and gave him a very peculiar look.

He lowered his eyestalk towards the bucket, wondering if it had any soap in it this time, too weak to examine its contents fully. At least he had managed to remember that little irritating fact. Dehydration was a pain. Especially here, in his greatest enemy's ship, chained up like some sort of pet. Which he could envision Ka Faraq Gatri regarding him as.

"You can have that stuff," she said, pointing towards the bucket. "As to what you're going to do with it I don't know. It's not like you have a mouth. Not externally anyway."

She didn't leave, but continued watching him as if she was fascinated by what he might do. This didn't faze him though and he extended his arm out towards the water. Dipping the suction cup into the clear liquid.

Many races thought this arm was pointless, but they were wrong. There were plenty of reasons why this arm was favoured over the gripper; not only could it pickup and lift heavy loads, but it could also suffocate someone by sucking the air out of them, interface with many kinds of computers, and absorb any useful nutrients or substances through a semi permeable membrane located in the centre of the device.

Once he had finished gorging himself on water he snapped his eyestalk upwards to glower at the human. Almost fully awake and furious about being ill and chained up, he lost all verbal control of himself and ranted a string of offensive Dalekese phrases at the pathetic bipedal creature before him. This caused her eyes to widen in alarm and flee from the room.

Pleased that he had distressed the human enough to force her into a retreat, he stopped struggling against his thick metallic bonds and sat still, waiting patiently as a true Dalek did for another opportunity to humiliate his two despicable captors.

Kept like a pet indeed, his thoughts full of satire. They would feel his wrath.


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

Martha had left Caan's cell hastily without a backwards glance. He did not care. He was glad that he did not have to gaze at the despicable woman's features again.

As the human left the room, Caan noticed that the lights dimmed immediately and changed colour. He  
stared at the ground and squirmed with contempt at where he was and who was imprisoning him.

The idiot actually thought dim red light would calm him! The Time Lord's intelligence was pathetic. Daleks did not succumb to serene lighting arrangements.

A slow moment passed before he realised that he was yawning. Drowsily.

He would have yawned anyway. Nobody would have seen him. It did not matter.  
He did it again.

Caan began to consider his state. Maybe he was tired – any living thing would be physically and mentally spent after the events of the last few weeks, even if he had spent most of the last few days unconscious.

Despite being a Dalek and not usually having to sleep he was beginning to find that simply resting was not sufficient.

Besides, there was nothing he could do at the moment; nothing to calculate, no mission to complete, no new information to be obtained, and he was chained up with no weapon. His existence was meaningless - until he could find a way out.

Well, there was _one_ thing he could do. But it was something he despised himself for being capable of; it made no logical sense to perform the action. And it was all Sec's fault that he was able to do it. He had utterly _despised_ that Dalek from the first time they had met and he felt completely neutral over his death. Sec had contaminated his brain; re-arranged it so that it was not normal. He was a freak by Dalek standards.

Caan might have been frustrated; but he had not quite reached the level where he would act the freak he was; he only ever did so when he was in a highly unbalanced state.

Another long moment slipped away, his consciousness also slowly fading away with it. He was beginning to get used to the odd, tiring sensation and even managed to shut down the non-essential functions of his travel unit before relaxing any further.

He was almost asleep when he suddenly bashed his head against one of the manual controls for the manipulator stalk, causing him to wake up and exhale a noisy squeak of pain. Grumbling with exhaustion, he speculated why he had done that and somehow managed to hit the back of his head off of a large collection of cables. Now he was not only sore but also angry.

Caan re-activated his eyepiece and gazed blearily around the small room. The TARDIS seemed to be going through some turbulence; the whole ship appeared to be shaking.

It was just one damn thing after another, he thought discontentedly as another wave of nausea struck him.

Ka Faraq Gatri was much more incompetent then what he first thought; he could not even control his ship properly.

He did not want to think about it; the more he thought about the turbulence, the more he noticed it and the closer he came to vomiting.

The turbulence did not last long though. It stopped rather abruptly – A little _too_ abruptly. Caan was certain that if it had not been for the chains holding him in place he would have toppled over from the force of the crash. He ran diagnostics on himself to check for any damage and found nothing unexpected; he already knew his energy reserves were low on power, and the knock to his head should have been enough to cause him to fall unconscious; a bruised lump meant nothing, he had been fortunate there.

Five minutes later and Caan's mind was starting to drift into sleepy darkness again. But for whatever the reason he could not get to sleep. After realising this he found himself fully alert and emitted a frustrated growl. He needed it. He wanted it. But he couldn't get it.

He gradually became aware of something. Discomfort.

The temperature onboard the TARDIS had risen significantly, so much so that even the cooling systems on his travel unit were struggling to operate. Caan swung his eyestalk from side to side in agitation, not really taking in any of the sights. He disliked the fact that he did not know what was happening, and he really disliked the idea of being tied down in possible danger. He instinctively wanted to flee the heat.

Caan backed up out of fright and tugged on his chains. The links seemed to have weakened from the heat and they snapped under his adrenaline-fuelled strength. Barely noticing he was free, he charged at the cell door, ramming it until its hinges gave way with a metallic crunch. He was not very aware of his actions or the pain that was caused by attacking the solid door.

In a blind panic he sped wildly through the TARDIS corridors, crashing into loose objects erratically.

-oOo-

After 42 minutes of sheer terror the last of the crew were safe. Martha could not believe it was all over and by no means was she going to miss that terrifying event where the ship had almost crashed into the angry sun.

All of that running around in the dead heat had been extremely painful. She dreaded discovering how sore her muscles were going to feel in the morning. They were currently screaming at her. Hopefully the Doctor had some sort of gadget that could relax tired limbs.

They spent some time with the last of the crew. Helping them to run diagnostics on the engines. Making sure the machinery was running efficiently enough to travel to the nearest re-fuelling point.

She had thrown smiles at Riley across the engine controls while they worked. Each time she did so a small glare flashed from the Doctor's eyes. Why he did this she had no idea. It was not like he liked her in that particular way. Maybe he was just an insecure person and thought he needed all the attention for himself. Then again, she speculated, he is an alien; smiling could mean something foul where he came from. But then why would he flash smiles at her sometimes?

Martha gave up on her train of thought; it was getting her nowhere. Now she was saying her goodbyes to the crew and stepping inside the TARDIS. She did not find Riley's offer to stay with him particularly exciting but on seeing the Doctor's glum face she was beginning to have second thoughts. Travelling with a depressed person was never fun. Especially since she still did not know much about him.

Not only that but the TARDIS was almost unbearably hot inside, as if it had been absorbing the heat.

The Doctor was inertly staring at the controls with an extremely unhappy look. He held that position for a few dark moments before he finally looked up at her.

"Oh hello," he said as if nothing had happened. His voice now had a cheery tone to it. "Finished with Riley now? Wanna go off to another planet?" he asked her.

Martha gaped slightly. How could someone just pretend to be happy like that? She said nothing.

The Doctor's face seemed to suddenly brighten into genuine enthusiasm. "Oh there's this great place called Tressta just outside of the Unkscoom galaxy. Verrrry far from your home. The whole planet has been manufactured. In fact, I read somewhere that it can actually travel space like a normal fuel powered ship and it has the bestest, creamiest, tastiest ice cream in the world. No, galaxy. Actually, make that the universe. It'll make a change from the heat of the TARDIS. You up for it?" He goggled impatiently at her while he waited for an answer.

"Yeah sure." She was a bit taken aback from his sudden outburst of excitement. The Doctor suddenly beamed and grabbed one of levers only to yelp and release his grip.

"What's wrong?" she asked automatically. It was a silly question; she already knew what was wrong. The air inside the TARDIS was pretty warm never mind the temperature of the metallic controls.

"I think we have a slight delay while the handbrake cools down," he said as he rubbed his hand in a hurt manner. "Which reminds me," the Doctor fished in his pockets for something and pulled out a small key on a long chain, "here." He handed it to her. "It's the key to the TARDIS."

"You're joking!" She held out her hand. "I thought you only had one of those."

"No! These keys have a mind of their own. I swear they have their own means of travel. I think I've lost over 50 of the little buggers over the years. They're probably lying forgotten somewhere on some desolate planet never to be seen again. I keep a small supply in the console drawers."

Martha nodded slowly whilst putting the key around her neck. "And when you mean 'small'-"

He interrupted her question, "-I mean around, Oooh, maybe 143 at last count."

She gave a small smile and examined the thin metal key fondly, muttering a meaningful 'thanks' as she prodded the shape with her fingers. A sudden thought struck her. Her mother! She had never managed to talk to her properly earlier on in the day.

The Doctor's expression slowly turned glum once more as she pulled out her mobile phone and tapped the buttons frantically, leaving the console room as she did so. But before she finished dialling the number something large, golden and pepper pot shaped rushed across the fork in the corridor and gave her a large enough shock to drop her phone.

"Er…Doctor?" she called tentatively into the console room.

He appeared beside her with a bemused expression on his face and his sonic screwdriver in his hand, "what? Phone not working?" he asked.

Martha shook her head slowly and wished that _was_ the problem. "I think the Dalek is loose."

-oOo-

Caan raced down the hot corridors, around the corner and collided heavily with a large tree.

He mentally shook himself back to alertness and stared utterly transfixed at the large organic structure that had the audacity to grow in his way and block his path.

He was too bothered to notice that there was more then one tree, or notice the large blanket of grass that spread ridiculously far into the distance. It was just that one _fucking_ tree that was irritating him to senselessness.

Instinctively he tried to destroy it with a blast from his gun, but couldn't. He looked down at where his gun was supposed to be and remembered with contempt that the Doctor had taken it and was probably holding it hostage. The bastard.

He decided to vent his fury by using one of the lower branches as a punching target and slammed his plunger arm into it. The branch snapped with a satisfying dry crack but now he was stuck; his arm was entangled with the surprisingly strong structure. Caan let out a long-winded and frustrated moan.

He could not understand why the whole universe seemed to be playing silly buggers with him. As if being in the Cult of Skaro had not been bad enough with his loony comrades never mind being trapped inside Ka Faraq Gatri's disorderly TARDIS.

With a lot of physical effort and very little thought, Caan managed to break free from the branch. It was a little bit cooler in this room but not cool enough. It was still too hot and he vaguely noted and blamed the small sun floating leisurely in the middle of the room just above the snow-capped mountains for the excess heat. If he had been in a clearer state of mind he might have actually shown more interest in the small fiery sun and mountain range that, somehow, managed to be contained within a spaceship.

Caan slowly made his way back to the corridors, crudely examining the large oak door that protruded from the ground as if it belonged inside some ludicrous fairy story. What he had just seen was highly confusing, so he pushed it to the back of his mind for processing later once he had found somewhere nicer to be. Somewhere…somewhere like a dark cold cupboard where he could just stay and pretend to be non-existent until he recovered from this _illness_.

The next room he found himself in made him wish he did not exist.

He eyed the large dark object in the middle of the room with a mixture of contempt and fear. It sat there, beneath a massive cathedral-like dome in the roof, presumed sunlight, or something similar, bathing the instrument in a dusty warm radiance.

Silence screamed, filling the room with a hazy blanket of nothing, and _really_ irritated him.

Caan backed out of the room at high speed, eager to get away.

He sped through the passageway, trying to loose his sense of direction so he would never find that awful room again and silently cursing his ex-commander and the heat.

From his strange experience of being loose on the TARDIS so far, he was beginning to conclude that he was going delirious. There was little chance of all this space being possible. The Daleks had experimented with dimensionally transcendental technology, but their attempts had never reached the same standards as the Time Lord's expertise.

-oOo-

"What are we going to do?" Martha asked as she tried to keep up with the Doctor's determined strides.

"Split up and find him," he said in a deep voice that was almost a growl. "We've got to restrain him before he finds his weapon."

Martha stopped for just a second to take in the severity of the Doctor's words. "And where did you leave that?"

The Doctor spun round on the balls of his feet, paused and then said, "under my bed." He had said it in an almost guilty tone.

She gave him one of the foulest looks she could muster.

"Well do you really think Caan will decide to either go into my room or look under my bed. I mean _how_ could he actually see under my bed? He can't exactly bend over can he? And then if he ever did make it into my room there's the question of what the hell he would be doing in there in the first place."

Martha thought he had a point. But there was something just a little bit dubious in the Doctor's voice that she did not trust. "Em…say if he did somehow find it, how would he re-attach it? It's not like his remaining arm could actually perform such a feat. Could it?"

The Doctor looked a bit shocked as if he was not used to people noticing those sorts of things. "Ah! That's where hiding it under my bed was probably a very bad idea. Being the only Dalek left he'd have to do things…er…by hand, or rather, tentacle. So it is actually feasible that he could find and re-attach it."

Martha gave him an even more irate look.

"But look on the bright side," he said unconvincingly. "It's not like he could do very much if he did find it. They're not exactly very strong creatures…well…they can strangle, claw, bite, slash, jump a few feet in the air, if need be, and generally stink up the area. But I mean come on! They're technically just couch potatoes if you _really_ think about it: they sit in front of a computer screen all their lives and fiddle with joysticks and stuff. You could probably kick him and he'd bounce off the walls like a little fat green ball. Green ball with clawed tentacles and sharp teeth mind you."

"Doctor. Shut up," she growled.

"Ok. Lets go look then," he squawked and fled from her angry expression.

With a bit of effort, Martha stopped clenching her jaw and fists and chose a random direction to walk in, hoping and yet totally dreading that she would come across the Dalek.

She entered the first room on her left, which happened to be one of the kitchens, and found nothing at all. Kitchen 4 was exactly the same as she had last seen it. Messy. It was actually hard to tell whether Caan might have stumbled in here since everything was already lying on its side. Maybe the creature would have the sense to clean it or, as her and the Doctor did, avoid it at all costs. With a small sigh she wandered off to look in another room, listening out for the gentle whirr of wheels or anti-gravity motors and keeping an eye out for an unusually shaped shadow.

* * *

**AN:** Oh! Look at that I updated! After _how_ long? 6 months! Agh! I'm sorry. I do have a few other chapters written for this that will hopefully be added soon. Mind you, 'soon' could be another 6 months to me. Oh the shame!

Chapter 11 (which might possibly be the ending of this particular story) needs a lot of editing. So If I appear to stop adding before then, it's probably because the editing is taking so long.

Whether the story is any good or not is your own opinion, and even after so long I'm still not entirely sure where I'm going with the series. Ideas have formed, and have also been scrapped. Also, I shall probably be editing the previous chapters of this fic. Not by much though - just removing some cheese and fixing some errors. Oh and I thought I might as well mention that this particular fic was never really meant to have much 'action' in it, it might seem a little plot-less, but it was meant to be a sort of introduction thing.

Ah well…Enjoy the semi-crack!

And thanks for all the reviews I've recieved!


	6. Chapter 6

**AN: **Woo, an update. And it didn't take 6 months... -awkward smile- Thanks to Dalek Avion who continues to review! :D

Oh yes, and on the corridor code. There should be a tab after 'shift corridor', but it disappeared without a trace... how peculiar.

* * *

The Doctor did not bother thoroughly checking the rooms for Caan. There was no point. He knew that the TARDIS twisted the direction of the corridors and shifted the rooms so that places or people could be found much quicker then what would happen normally. Sometimes she would play tricks and extend the distance but that only happened if they had been travelling in the time vortex for a few days. It was as if she could become bored and amuse herself by annoying her occupants.

The chances were that she was leading him towards Caan, or possibly vice versa. Either way she would be working in his favour.

After travelling down the 23rd corridor he started to slow his pace and speculate what was taking so long. He seemed to be travelling across the same passages. This was unusual for the TARDIS. What was she doing?

-oOo-

Another dimensional twist later and the unstable, almost pitiful, creature was racing along the same corridor it was trying to escape from.

It was an odd strategy she had conjured up.

_Screw with the creature's mind_

Surely the continual loop of corridors would soften it or at least tire it out. Surely it was what her Doctor wanted.

Either way. She found sensing its confused fear somewhat amusing. Infinitive loops were fun.

Loop

Shift Corridor

Next Loop

-oOo-

He had completely lost it; the ship was driving him insane. He cursed as he imagined himself as a small rodent trying to get away from continually overlapping hands. It was just the same startling route over and over and over to ad nauseam.

How could this happen?

It was almost impossible for him to get tired physically and mentally but it seemed to be happening to him right now. Heat, fear, a lot of time and kinetic energy were not a desirable mix of elements.

With a great deal of effort the exasperated Dalek exerted a final burst of speed and crashed into one of the TARDIS's many laundry rooms, hitting the drier and knocking over a basket of assorted fabrics that had been set on top of the machine.

If the Daleks had any amount of humbleness he might have been a bit uncomfortable with the fact that there were a few garments of underwear that had alighted themselves upon his person. And guessing from the shapes and colours they probably belonged to Martha. Not that he cared.

Caan spluttered and shook the worst of the pink frilly garments off. There was no need for them to be there and there was no need for him to be in here either. He reversed out from the room. Movement was impaired, so his usual gliding motion had been reduced to an unsteady shuddering roll.

The universe seemed to sway around him as if he had been intoxicated, making it harder for him to navigate the few meters distance to the opposite wall. He finally found the wall by slamming his huge bulk into it.

A shadow crept along the wall just on the edge of his vision and he swivelled around to look at its caster, a tall man in a pinstripe suit. Ka Faraq Gatri.

-oOo-

The Doctor was disgusted. Never before had he seen one of these creatures close up and in such an ill state. Caan's breath was horribly obvious, rattling out from the grille on his neck, and his appendages wouldn't stop shaking.

Despite this he could not help but be amused, for hanging from one of Caan's ear-like energy dispensers was one of Martha's pairs of under garments.

"I see you've found you're way out of your cell and into Martha's underwear," he said, trying to make himself sound as filthy as possible.

Caan made a mere 'meeping' sound. He did not shout a retort to these words.

The Doctor's right eyebrow rose in a thoughtful manner. The Dalek did not seem up to much at the moment. "Everything alright in there?" he asked him, tapping lightly on his dome and noticing the heat emitting from the metal. He reached out and removed the pair of pink frilly knickers from the Dalek's head, placing it somewhere in his pockets because it seemed like a sensible place to put them.

As expected, Caan did not answer.

"Caan?" he tried again. He surprised himself with a small amount of empathy for the creature. With the hot environment, Caan must be absolutely _boiling_ inside his thick armour.

His response was a feeble moan. But it was enough of a response for the Doctor and he tugged on his sucker arm. "Come on, Caan. I know what you want…" he cooed, trying to coax the stubborn creature into following him.

Too weak to object, Caan eventually complied and rolled shakily after the Doctor.

-oOo-

In every corridor and room she peered into she expected to see the Dalek. It was beginning to creep her out.

Shut up, she told herself, there's no reason why it would go into the Doctor's room. It doesn't have its gun. It _cannot_ shoot you.

Martha paused to calm herself. She had always considered the TARDIS to be a safe place. But the thought of an enraged Dalek stalking the hallways, hiding behind corners and in the shadows was really getting to her.

Where was the Doctor's room anyway? she asked herself. Every time she had come across him he was almost always in the console room, under the grating or central column, _apparently _fixing things. If she was being totally honest with herself she was sure she hadn't seen him sleep at all. Maybe he didn't need it.

A very bizarre sound started to emit from one of the rooms just a few doors ahead. It sounded like the staccato cry of the Dalek, yet, it sounded almost _happy_. Happy didn't seem the right word to use. Euphoric was closer.

"I told you that's what you wanted." Came the Doctor's voice.

Martha's eyebrow rose in worry. When the Dalek moaned again the other eyebrow followed the first.

"You like that don't you?" The Doctor's voice was surprisingly soft. Martha forbid herself from imagining the worst. It was impossible. What could the Doctor possibly see in a Dalek?

She folded her arms, bracing herself for what she might find as she prepared to round the corner and walk into the room. Admittedly what she saw was not what she was thinking of seeing, nothing of the sort.

"What are you doing?" she questioned the Doctor. She eyed the Dalek as he hosed him down with water. The area appeared to be more like a small concrete garden with a drain and a tap rather then an actual room.

"He's too hot so I'm giving him a cold shower," the Doctor said simply, waving the hose up and down over the Dalek's form with an amused expression. Despite Caan's inactivity it was clear that he appreciated the break from the heat from his odd groans.

The Doctor looked at her, "you have heard the saying: 'dogs die in hot cars,' yes? Well it's much the same with Daleks. They can die in heat too. And the cold."

Martha rolled her eyes exasperatedly. "You really are treating this thing like a pet, aren't you?" she said. "Doctor, it's not a pet. It's an evil creature with an intelligence that's greater then Einstein's. It'll probably escape from the TARDIS at some point, destroy a few planets, build an army, then come back to kill you. You're playing with fire!" she warned, surprised that she had to tell the Doctor this. It was supposed to be his enemy after all.

But at the same time she could not help admiring this quality. It is what made him better then Caan; he treated everything with care, whether it had been good or bad.

"I think you know why I am against destroying him," he said darkly.

"Of course you don't want to be the cause of another genocide, but look at him, Doctor. Maybe if you just let him die on his own, from heat or whatever, then it's not your fault. Besides, haven't you destroyed them before?"

"They always come back," he said ominously. "It's better to solve the problem rather than getting rid of it. And letting things die, or leaving it in the hope that it will sort itself out isn't always the best way. Some things just need a good old kick up the backside to get it back on the rails."

"But didn't you say it was the last Dalek? If you destroy it there will be nothing left for them to grow back from," she said and looked up at his face. His expression looked doubtful.

"I met a Dalek a while back that I thought was the last. It had fallen through time. If one can survive then it's possible that more could have escaped in some way. And then those four had managed to escape being sucked into a void."

"Wow. They really are like cockroaches then," she stated. "Stubborn things that never die. No matter how many times you stand on them."

"Yep," the Doctor said. "Now you're beginning to understand them." He winked at her.

Martha stared at him and his mischievous expression. It took her a moment to notice that the hose was not pointing at the Dalek anymore, just slightly offside as if he was ready to point it somewhere else. As soon as she noticed this she received a face full of water.

She yelled in surprise and aimed a wet slap at him, but he ducked and thrust the hose end in her direction, soaking her with water. Martha gulped from the cold.

Glaring at him, she snatched the hose from his grasp and pointed it at his head in an attempt to drench his hair. She knew how much he liked preening himself so this was bound to annoy. And sure enough it did. He bawled angrily, but playfully, at her and lunged for the hose. Missing by mere inches, he fell on the floor where Martha was free to pour water all over him.

"Serves you right," she said with a wicked grin. The Doctor looked rather dismayed.

He snorted. "I let you win."

"Sure you did."

The banter stopped when Caan started to cough violently. Cough or retch, it was hard to distinguish the two differences in a Dalek. The Doctor got up onto his feet and stared at him. An unreadable, almost alien, expression came over the Doctor's face. "Caan, what's wrong with you?"

Caan's coughing fit continued for a moment longer. When he finally managed to say something he snapped. "Nothing."

"Now, both you and I, and most definitely Martha, know that you're not telling the truth. You're sick," he said.

"There is nothing wrong with me," he droned, "I am not _sick_."

"Uh huh." The Doctor mumbled dubiously. "And I suppose you're just peachy despite the coughing, the retching, the vomiting, and the shaking."

"There is nothing wrong," the Dalek repeated monotonously.

The Doctor aimed an amused look at Martha and whispered, "see, he's stubborn as a mule." He turned back to Caan. "I think you should go back to your cell. Come!" he demanded, clapping his hands together in an enthusiastic manner. "Oh look at that! It's like bed rest for a Dalek."

"I refuse," Caan said.

"Oh really!" It was more of an exclamation then a question. He reached into his pockets and pulled out a long thin metallic tool, which Martha noticed was the sonic screwdriver. Caan gave it a quick glance but failed to reveal whether he remembered the effect that the tool had on him or not. The Doctor pressed the screwdriver's switch and aimed it at a specific part of him.

Caan started to yell in pain as the sound pierced into his audio systems. The screeching sound only lasted a few seconds but it had a remarkable effect on the Dalek. The Dalek now seemed completely devoid of any energy. Not that he seemed to have much energy before.

"That's what you get for disobeying me," the Doctor said ironically as he put the screwdriver in his sodden pockets. He winked at Martha a second time before grabbing Caan's arm and pulling him out of the concrete room and towards his little prison cell, which had handily enough materialised at the far end of the corridor. The Dalek did not resist physically but did attempt to shout protests at them.

Once inside the cell, the Doctor wrapped the chains around Caan again. He checked each link in turn to make sure that this time they would stay strong. The links that were weak got a thorough treatment from his screwdriver. When he finished examining the chains he glanced up at Martha with raised eyebrows.

"I think he's gone to sleep again. Or at least he's almost gone," he said in a surprised, yet curious, tone. Martha listened and heard what the Doctor had based his conclusion on. Caan's breathing had changed once more; it was heavy and drawn out, and could actually be heard from a distance.

Normally she had to be inches from the grille on the creature's neck to hear the gentle rush of air, and even then she was more likely to feel it than hear it. From a distance they just looked like machines, but the closer she got the more she noticed the evidence of life; its breath, its smell and the tiny movements that might have been some weak form of body language.

"I just can't think…" he started, pointing the sonic screwdriver at Caan's shoulders and pressing the button, "what it is that might be wrong with him." The Dalek's casing unfolded to reveal an awful stench as well as the hideous mutated creature.

Martha automatically raised her hand up to her nose and looked away. It was quite a gruesome sight. And _very_ unnatural. She had noticed though that the _thing_ inside seemed to be semi-awake. Last time she had seen him, he was sprawled over all the machine's controls and most definitely unconscious. Now he was sitting and looking very groggy with eyes that were barely open. Once or twice he seemed to almost fall over. It was like he was drunk, Martha mused.

Caan went into a fit of sneezes.

"Oh, so that's what's wrong," the Doctor said, "he's got the flu. Martha, that's your fault."

"What!?" she snapped, "how's that my fault?"

"Influenza originated on Earth," he said simply, "but mind you, you can blame the Daleks for the measles."

"Right. And what originated on Gallifrey then?"

"Nothing. We knew how to contain our bacteria." He sounded so patriotic. If he looked slightly drier she might have been able to take him seriously. The Doctor turned his attention back to Caan, "I guess we'll just have to watch him and see if he gets any better on his own. Some aliens can have a bad reaction to it."

"Fuck off," Caan grunted through the machine's audio systems, sounding strangely exhausted. The mutated creature was giving them the foulest look he could muster under his present circumstances. Caan pawed at one of the controls laboriously, and activated it. The machine shut with a hiss.

An amused smile came over the Doctor's face. "Did he just _swear_ at us?" he asked childishly.

Martha nodded, rolling her eyes as she did so.

The Doctor's face broke into an immature grin, "Daleks _never_ swear."

"That's lovely, Doctor," Martha dismissed, "can we go now? This smell is really awful."

He gaped slightly before saying, "yeah. OK." He looked a bit crestfallen, but he left the room with her. He took a last look at Caan and let out a small giggle.

-oOo-

Later that night, the Doctor was once again tinkering with the controls of the TARDIS. His glasses were on the tip of his nose and his tongue was poking out in deep thought. His eyes seemed to brighten for a moment while a thought came over him. He pulled off one of the console panels and looked inside.

A mixture of complicated circuits and intricate clockwork met his gaze. Gears turned slowly and diodes blinked playfully up at him. The Doctor reached inside his pocket and pulled out his screwdriver, changed the setting and proceeded to use it inside the machinery.

The whole TARDIS juddered. A deep rumbling and stressed creaking sounded throughout the entire structure.

"Yep. That's what I thought," he said to the pulsating column. "You had and itch. And I scratched it for you."

The TARDIS rumbled again.

"You're welcome," he said cheerfully, and placed the panel back where it belonged.

Martha wandered into the console room looking rather confused and slightly worried. "What just happened? The whole ship just shook."

The Doctor looked at her. "Aww. Don't worry. I knew what I was doing. I always know what I'm doing."

Martha smiled dubiously at him. The Doctor noted that she was in her pyjamas, with a stuffed toy to add. Her hair was still slightly damp after coming out of a bath; she had complained about sore muscles, presumably the bath helped her. There was no chance that they were going to go off adventuring tonight then. Why did he have to choose humans to be his companions? They always had to sleep for such ridiculous lengths of time.

"Well, after all that running about today, I'm going off to bed," she said, pointing towards the assumed direction of her room. Her eyes however did not point to the same direction as her fingers. They were pointing to a book lying on the TARDIS console. The Doctor had learned from the first day with Martha that she absolutely adored books and had seen her in the library everyday since he had shown it to her.

"Yes," he responded before she even managed to ask if she could take it to read. Her face brightened instantly. She stepped towards the thick book, 'Legend of Falazi – Volume 3' and picked it up.

The Doctor watched her pick up the book with care. There were seven volumes to that series. A highly complex legend it was. Supposedly someone called Falazi had travelled to the edge of the universe and had discovered something big. He returned to his home world and before he even managed to let slip the news he was kidnapped. There had been a note left in his house that stated he had been killed. An unreadable co-ordinate had been given to show the position of his remains.

There were many speculations that it had been a hoax and that Falazi had just abandoned his world.

The Doctor had never made up his mind on the whole matter. Besides, legends never told the whole truth. He did not understand why so many people were fascinated by it. Unexplainable things should just be left alone. It was bordering on forbidden territory that could destroy or be destroyed. Come to think of it, he wasn't very sure why he had it lying there, probably holding a button down whilst he fixed something.

Martha still had not left yet. She was staring at one of the console displays with analytical eyes. The display she was looking at was the visual output for the camera inside Caan's cell, and inside the Dalek's travel unit. The one he had named 'mutantcam'.

Fearing that he was missing something interesting or exciting, he bounded over and examined the picture with her.

He found that it was not interesting or exciting. It was closer to worrying.

Caan's condition had worsened severely. The creature had been reduced to a shivering wreck and was clearly in a lot of distress. And there was definitely not, as he put it, 'nothing wrong with him'. It seemed that whatever was wrong with him it wasn't the mere flu.

He was a Dalek so it was in his nature that he would not admit to illness or weakness very easily, nor was he going to let it show if he could help it. The Doctor began to wonder how much Caan had been hiding and how unwell he really was.

"He's really sick, we'll have to go and see to him." The Doctor said solemnly. He could hear Martha sigh silently with unwillingness. She really must hate that Dalek, he thought. Maybe even more than he did, if that was even possible.


	7. Chapter 7

**AN: **Ack, here come the slow updates again. . Here is probably the most angsty chapter I have ever tried writing. Or, more accurately, a part of it. Caan's just not having any luck in this story...

* * *

Both the Doctor and Martha left the console room and headed for Caan's cell. The information from the camera had been very poor and as they entered the room they realised just how bad the situation was. The Doctor's eyes widened in shock as he realised that both the travel unit and the life support had failed on Caan. His weak confined cries could barely be heard through the machine's thick metal armour.

What made it worse was that without power it was going to be extremely hard to get Caan out of his casing in order to help him. Despite knowing this he tried to use the sonic screwdriver to open the shoulders anyway, but without power the machine refused to open that way.

"What do you reckon?" Martha asked him unhelpfully.

The Doctor did not answer, instead he walked over to the Dalek unit and felt under the dome for a catch.

"There should be some kind of latch under the dome for manual entry," he said, "but it's really difficult to find."

Caan's screaming continued like a muffled alarm clock.

"How long do you think he's been trapped like this?" Martha ambled over and attempted to help him locate the latch. "God! His screams are annoying." She tapped on the dome and yelled into it, "will you shut up! We're here now and we're trying to get you out. So will you give us some peace to work?"

The Doctor shook his head. "There's no point, Martha. The Daleks have poor hearing and eyesight. He won't know we're here."

"Well despite that, they've got some set of lungs on them." Martha said disdainfully.

He ignored her comment and continued to pry around the machine's head for the latch and eventually found it. Carefully, he pushed it up and lifted the dome off its hinges.

"You found it!" Martha exclaimed, relief edging into her voice.

"Yep. But now we've got to remove all this junk before we can get to him." He indicated to the mass of wires and circuitry that had been placed just below the dome. "In the past this is where the mutants were kept. Not the flipping computer."

He sighed and used the sonic screwdriver in a more traditional way. Unscrewing. There were a ridiculous number of screws and chipboards and in the end he didn't know what to do with them all. Were they even needed? He asked himself. The image of a green squid-like creature strangling him to death because he had cannibalised parts of his unit came to mind and prevented him from even trying to lose a single screw.

Caan's shrieks were becoming sharper and much more irritating now. The Doctor was hoping that he might just get a sore throat from all the yelling and finally stop. But the Dalek did no such thing.

They removed the last layer of circuitry and found that despite the racket Caan was making, he was not thrashing around like the Doctor half expected him to be doing. He was just curled up and shivering on the platform he sat on, tentacles wrapped around each other as if he was cold. His breathing was terribly laboured.

"What now?" Martha asked. Her arms were folded indignantly; she had not had any part in the proceedings yet and was probably waiting for an instruction.

The Doctor shrugged before reaching inside the machine. He paused just as his fingers were centimetres from touching Caan's flesh and considered how fast he should be. He knew the creature was awake, scared and very likely to bite. Bite was probably an understatement. But on the other hand Caan was not exactly well enough to put up much of a fight.

Finally making his mind up, he grabbed the Dalek by the scruff and hoisted him up so his sharp teeth could not reach his arm, or any other part of his body for that matter. To the Doctor's amazement Caan went completely limp and silent as if allowing him to remove him from the safety of his armour.

He lifted the near-lifeless form from the machine. He could feel Caan's weight was probably a little lighter then what should probably be normal, but his weight wasn't the highest priority at the moment.

Long cables and tubes jutted out from the mutant's spine and trailed their way back inside the dead machine. It was rather disgusting to view them, boring deep into the creature. This was not how life was supposed to live – attached to life support and seeing through a virtual environment.

He repositioned his grip on him, trying to find one that would be easier to work. Caan then, oddly enough, tried to bury his head in the Doctor's suit as if he was seeking the warmth, or the dark, and hopefully not something to bite, scratch or maul.

The Doctor turned to Martha. "Take them out," he said, indicating the ugly tubes and wires protruding from the Dalek's back with a brief flick of his head.

Martha hesitated. "What are you going to do with him?" she asked.

"Take him to the infirmary," he said simply. "He won't survive otherwise. He needs radiation, I'm sure something in there will work on him."

"Why don't you-" She started, but the Doctor interrupted her, sensing her question.

"He's beyond the travel unit's current capabilities of healing him. It's why he's been rejected. There's no point in trying to fix it at the moment; he needs treatment now, after that then I'll re-configure this beast." His head jerked towards the empty shell.

Martha sighed and examined the tubes. "It goes really deep from the looks of it." She placed her hands carefully on one of the tubes and tugged gently. Caan squirmed and yelped uncomfortably. The Doctor had to tighten his grasp on his neck to stop him from struggling.

A small pained gasp from Caan indicated that Martha had removed the first of the cables. The Doctor had not expected it to hurt so much and looked down at Martha's handiwork. Of all the things he expected to see, he did not think he would find an inflamed pus-filled wound. Caan groaned further as the next cable was removed, spraying both Martha and the Doctor with filthy green blood. Each removal brought a more aggravated noise from him each time and revealed an even worse infection.

All the tubes had been removed, leaving his back looking like a battlefield of torn skin, metallic implants, pus, blood and to add to that, the smell of decay. Even Martha, who was relatively used to seeing horrible wounds, looked utterly revolted.

"Doctor, he's really sick." She said, eyeing the Dalek's ravaged spine. "I don't think he'd survive even if you tried to save him. You'd only prolong death. And it would be a painful one."

The Doctor was startled by her words and gaped. Caan had passed out and was deathly limp in his arms. The rise and fall of his crudely shaped torso was irregular and shallow as he struggled to breathe.

Despite hating the creature, he could not help but feel guilty. There was many a time when he might have had the chance to change the Dalek race, or to destroy them; Caan might have been born differently if only he had not failed.

_Just touch these two strands together…_

His hand closed around Caan's neck. Martha watched him with a non-judgemental expression. Oh how this paralleled with his chance to destroy them at their point of creation. He could almost hear Sarah Jane's words calling out to him, supporting him with his task.

_And the Daleks are finished…_

He increased the pressure in his fingers. Just slightly. It was fair, wasn't it? He was ill. He did not have much to live for, at least, not in his own opinion anyway. Caan probably thought differently.

To break his neck or not?

To finish off the last of an intelligent species.

To commit murder.

_Genocide_.

The end of the Time War was mere seconds from becoming a reality again. He had the advantage. All of those years of suffering could end in one brief movement. But would not a different pain arise if he did end the last Dalek's life?

_Have I that right?_

Sometimes he understood why the Daleks had removed the ability to feel guilt. His hand slackened.

"I can't." He said weakly. And stroked the top of Caan's fragile head gently with a single finger. He glanced at Martha and looked her in the eyes, "I can't do it. I can't. I'm not a killer. I don't want to be one."

Martha smiled softly at him. "That's OK. I wouldn't have been able to do it either. Maybe there's a chance for him. I mean he's not human, I can't really judge." He couldn't really tell but there seemed to be a glint in her eyes that suggested she was glad with his decision.

Her eyes started to trail over Caan's dilapidated form, analysing every little detail. She placed her palm on his head and a confused look spread over her face, but she shook it off and looked back at the Doctor.

"So is my patient going to get a bed then?" she asked.

The Doctor smirked slightly, "follow me, Martha Jones." He turned and left the room, almost tripping over Caan's long tentacles.

-oOo-

"So what are you doing now?" Martha asked the Doctor curiously, her eyes following him around the room.

He was running around with an IV bag in his mouth whilst he played around with some dangerous chemicals, looking highly ridiculous in the process.

"I'm unna oo ome aioioope n a if ing," he mumbled.

Martha blinked. She knew the first words were, 'I'm gunna' but as for the rest she was a little unsure. "What?" she finally asked.

The Doctor rolled his eyes and took the bag out of his mouth. "I'm gunna put some radioisotopes in the IV thing." He said it like it was the most obvious thing in the world. It was now Martha's turn to roll her eyes. The Doctor really could be so condescending at times.

She returned her attention back to Caan. They had laid him on bubble wrap in an attempt to keep him warm but he still felt a little bit cold to the touch. He did not wake as she started to clean away the worst of the dirt, which she was glad about; she didn't want to break her record for having not received a bite from a patient yet.

It was a disgusting job, and it wasn't made any easier by the Doctor barging in on her work every now and then, and injecting all sorts of toxic-looking things into the Dalek.

"What are you doing now?" Martha hissed, at the sight of the Doctor pushing the IV tube into one of Caan's tentacles. "Didn't you check for a vein?"

The Doctor looked up at her innocently. "Of course I did."

"I didn't see you," she said in an accusing voice.

"Oh, don't worry!" he said. "I'm pretty familiar with their biology. Look!" He squeezed the tip of one of Caan's other tentacles, causing it to ripple away from him. "Reaction number one. Whilst if I squeeze here…"

Nothing happened.

The Doctor then proceeded to take one of Caan's large bat-like ears and folded it inside out. Nothing happened again. The Doctor now just seemed to be fooling around. Martha slapped his hand away from the Dalek before it got a bit too adventurous over the creature's anatomy.

"I know you don't like him, and neither do I, but have a little bit of respect," she growled and returned to sterilising Caan's back.

"Haven't you ever wondered…" he started.

"Wondered what?" she asked, thinking she knew what he was going to ask but hoping he was not going to say it. He really was like a little boy sometimes. Did not he just tell her he was familiar with them?

"You know. If they have…oh, never mind."

And she tried her hardest not to remember.

Once she was happy enough with the cleanliness of Caan's infection she moved on to wrapping him up in bandages and blankets.

"You should go to bed now." The Doctor said when she had finished. "I can watch over him. I know you humans need ridiculous amounts of sleep."

Martha smirked at him. "Fine. But don't disturb him, I think he probably needs more sleep than me at the moment."

She was not sure whether or not to be irritated by his mischievous grin. That expression on his face could mean anything from doing as she asked, to completely disobeying her. Deciding to ignore his expression, she turned to leave.

"Don't forget Falazi." The Doctor called out cheerfully.

Martha gave a small grin as soon as she realised that he was talking of the book. "Of course not."

-oOo-

Humans really were boring when they were tired. And they got grouchy too. He didn't have any company for tonight except a lifeless squid-like creature, who really shouldn't have had to sleep so much in the past few days.

Caan was worse then Martha, he observed. He felt like prodding him awake just to amuse himself but thought the better of it. It had been him that suggested in helping the Dalek after all, and preventing him from sleeping and recovering did not seem like the place to start.

The Doctor gazed around the room looking for something to do. There were very few entertaining things to do in an infirmary. Even the walls emitted a sense of boredom with their dull, but hygienic, white colour. Maybe he should have redecorated in here as well when he last changed the design of the console room.

What he really wanted to do was go to Tressta and eat some of its lovely ice cream. Unfortunately, that was not an option at the moment and so he was forced to look somewhere else to entertain himself rather then go off on a wander.

He found some entertainment hiding in the far corner of the room. A radio. He couldn't remember why it was there but he had a sneaking suspicion it was to do with an experiment he had tried on a couple of metal-loving flowers a few years back. The Doctor wandered over and took a last look around the room before turning it on. Soft music started to play and he drummed his fingers on the table. But this didn't fit the mood he was in and he turned the dial, browsing for something more energetic or classical.

Five minutes later and he was mouthing the words to a popular song in the Shapley-Ames 5 Galaxy. It was like a cross between a few bands on Earth, and title was translated as 'The Holy Horse'. The more primitive worlds called it 'a mess', whilst the older civilisations called it 'noise pollution'. The in-between races, which tended to be located nearer the centre of the universe, seemed to have a more open-minded look on things and actually liked that type of music. They called it 'a realistic interpretation of life in general'. The Doctor still didn't quite understand what the central races meant by this, but either way, he liked it. He had heard much worse after all.

Ten minutes later and he was practically bellowing the words into the end of a discarded stethoscope. He was not only singing, but dancing as well. Or at least he was trying to dance; he had never learnt any of the moves to individual songs, and his one attempt at the 'moonwalk' had gone so wrong he swore never to attempt it again.

When the song ended he found his foot was on one of the chairs and his arms were up in the air. He slowly lowered his arms and blushed for no particular reason. He was glad no one had seen that. He would have made such a fool of himself, especially when he almost tripped over a set of stray cables running along the ground.

The Doctor put the stethoscope back in the drawers and sat down in order to recover both physically and mentally from all the exercise he had done in the past 24 hours.

On the edge of his vision a pair of amber eyes blinked at him. He blinked back. Someone had seen him making a fool of himself. The Doctor felt his face go very hot. Caan must have woken up with the amount of noise he was making.

How embarrassed should he be? He thought to himself. Caan was only a Dalek; it was not like he would find any amusement in his actions. Although, he mused, Caan could hold his antics against him.

Caan's face contorted into something very nasty. The Doctor was surprised he even had the capacity to look any uglier then what he already did and his eyes widened in horror.

It was only after Caan had rolled over onto his side to go back to sleep that the Doctor realised that the Dalek had been _grinning_ at him, or rather, sneering.

Which possibly meant that Caan _did_ find his awful singing and dancing amusing after all.

Either that or he was so intoxicated with drugs that it was beginning to affect him in unusual ways.

He didn't particularly care what Caan thought but his face reddened even further anyway.

-oOo-

In the first chapter of the Falazi series Martha learned quite a lot, or possibly lost a lot. In fact, the first page gave up a lot of information, so much information it pushed away quite a bit of her knowledge.

Co-ordinates were hard things to understand, at least when travelling in space they were. The longitude and latitude on Earth was relatively difficult, and that was only one planet. What happened when a solar system was added? And then a galaxy? And then the relative position in the universe? Not only that but things moved; the universe expanded, planets spun and galaxies danced around each other. How exactly were you supposed to give your position?

And what if you were a time traveller? The 3-Dimensional world was complicated enough never mind adding a date to it as well.

All in all, Martha had gone from having a rough idea of where she was in the universe, to having no idea at all. She blinked at the next page. Which only had one line on it. Well, ok. It spanned a few lines, but it still all seemed to belong in the same sentence.

Although sentence probably was not the right word to use, a small footnote at the bottom of the page told her that the garbled mess of numbers, symbols and letters was without a doubt _the_ most _stupid_ co-ordinate _ever_ given. And due to nobody being able to understand it they decided the place did not exist and hence marked it outside the universe.

Martha snapped the book shut, thinking that she should just stick to medicine. She would leave navigation up to the Doctor, although sometimes she had sneaking suspicions that even _he_ did not know where they were going at times.

Oh well, she thought, they seemed to manage fine nonetheless. She switched the bedside light off and gazed up into the darkness. There were no windows and her eyes never got used to the dark, and she was never sure whether that was a good thing or not.

-oOo-

Somewhere on the edge of the twisting galaxy, something rotated. Shifted. Its unbelievably complex systems were contained within a mere few meters cubed and it gazed at its target with ancient sensors that operated satisfactory despite all the fire it had to survive through.

Its target hovered between the small mechanical planet and the large wornhole-like occurrence, commonly known as 'the time vortex'. The ship waited for its target, its aged engines purred unwearyingly. It would not be long now before its master was satisfied…

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Reply:

Dalek Avion – The flu… evil grin maybe it is. And maybe it's not. Most likely not. :P And to answer your question. Yes I am. It looks like you've found me there though. :)


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